I sipped my pint and kept quiet as the barmaid brought over a plate of cheese sandwiches. The perfect meal. A few pints, a few sandwiches, me and Margaret, somewhere nobody knew us. Maybe we should stay. Make friends with the writer across the river. Go to dinner parties.
‘Multiple houses suggests multiple people,’ she said.
‘Could be. Like that Bloomsbury lot, buying up properties around Lewes. Some kind of artists’ colony.’
The sandwiches were terrible. The bread was stale and the cheese thinly sliced. Margarine instead of butter.
‘Maybe you’re right about wanting them empty. Somebody’s buying privacy.’
‘It would have to be someone rich,’ she said. ‘That’s a lot of income you’re choosing to forego if you leave houses empty. How many names on Gooch’s list?’
I pulled the paper from my shirt pocket.
‘Six, plus Gooch.’
‘Let’s say they’re being rented out at a pound a month,’ she said. ‘That’s twelve pounds a year per house. Multiply that by seven, that’s over eighty pounds a year. Make it a hundred, because there must be one or two more that Gooch doesn’t know about. A hundred a year, that’s a small fortune.’
‘We need to find out who’s been buying up the properties,’ I said.
I finished my pint. The beer wasn’t much better than the sandwiches. It was cloudy, from the bottom of the barrel, and overpriced.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
‘I’m thinking we should go back upstairs.’
She took her pint glass, three-quarters full, and downed it, holding my eye.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said.
37
We took the coast route back. Better to avoid London, and I wanted to stop at Lewes. The county town was the site of the records office. If there had been sales of properties on the Forest, there’d be paperwork.
‘I feel like a farmer’s wife going to town for a big adventure,’ Margaret said, as we stepped out of Lewes station, with the town laid before us.
‘I’m not sure how many adventures Lewes has to offer,’
I said.
‘Nonsense,’ she said, ‘I hear the women at the WI talking about it all the time. Apparently the slices of cherry cake at Schofield’s are quite the thing.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got the morning planned out,’ I said.
*
Lewes was full of troops, spilling from the pavements onto the narrow streets. Most shops had their windows boarded up against potential bomb blasts, and those that weren’t boarded up were covered in tape, criss-crossed to hold the glass together against potential shock waves. There was a buzz in the air. If the Germans invaded, Lewes would be in their way, a strategic gap in the otherwise impassable barrier of the South Downs. The Norman castle on the hill was a constant reminder that this was astrategic position between the coast and the rest of the country.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ A policeman stood, watchful. ‘Can I see your identity papers?’ he asked, polite, but alert.
‘We’re allowed to be here,’ Margaret said.
I pulled my identity card from my inside pocket, glad I’d brought it with me. Margaret made a show of digging through her handbag. The policeman took mine and studied it. He was doing his job, I reminded myself, doing his bit to keep the country safe.
‘What brings you here?’ he asked, addressing me as if Margaret didn’t exist.
‘Cherry cake, apparently,’ I said, raising my eyebrows and nodding to Margaret.
The policeman didn’t smile.
